Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday February 06, 2013 @05:05PM
from the might-as-well-put-it-to-good-use dept.

judgecorp writes "Fears that mobile phones cause cancer have never had strong backing from scientific research, but Israeli startup Tawkon is using those fears for an interesting business model. Its free app (banned from Apple's App Store, but on Android, BlackBerry and unlocked iPhones) tracks how much radiation your phone is emitting. This lets concerned users hold their phones away from their heads or whatever — but it also gives Tawkon a useful map of cellphone coverage around the world, which is the real asset it is monetizing — for the benefit of everyone, it says."

The asians have been selling anti-radiation maternity cloths for years now. My wife purchased one herself. Surprisingly, they work...at blocking cell reception at least. I tested it out with two cell phones. Both had full bars. As soon as I covered one of the phones all the way around, the signal dropped. It was instant and the test could be repeated over and over again. So the clothes do was they're advertised to do. The question is, does it really impact the safety of fetal development? Doubt it. But there you go.

While the fear mongering and data collection is a bit worrisome, they might actually be on to something here.

It would be very useful to have crowd-sourced maps of cell coverage, speeds, dropped calls, etc... Would certainly make the choice of provider a much more informed decision, instead of relying on their own coverage maps.

I work in neurology research at a university- so far, the jury (data) hasn't decided yet. Increases in cellular calcium ion channel activity result from exposure to EMF. This includes L-type calcium channels in neurons. The L-type channel is involved in a lot of functions- this includes gene expression, neuronal survival and death. I'm not saying "it causes cancer". Just saying there are still some very compelling grants out there about to be funded that are looking into this- The jury is still out.